This invention concerns rain gutters installed beneath roof eaves to collect rainwater runoff. The roof eaves sometimes form inside corners where roof sections pitched in different directions intersect, which requires an inside corner piece connected to straight gutter sections along each of the eaves forming the inside corner. A problem is created by an increased volume of rainwater runoff collected by a roof valley formed between the different roof sections. Since the increased flow volume directed into the inside corner piece causes overflow of rainwater over the top portion of the inside corner piece if it is not big enough to contain this increased volume.
Various solutions have been proposed to eliminate such overflows such as diverter baffles and rain water distributors, as shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,899,912; 2,120,395 and 7,765,743; and patent publication nos. US 2002/0124476; US 2001/0017008; US 2002/0124476; and US 2002/0152691.
Such baffles and diverters are relatively expensive and add to the labor of installing a gutter system, and also often do not work well.
Another solution which has been proposed is to increase the capacity of the corner piece by providing a front wall extending across the inside corner at a 45 degree angle which widens the corner piece, as shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,883,760; 2,537,243 and 2,120,395. The inside corner pieces described in the latter two patents are adapted to a simple semicircular gutter configuration formerly used.
In practice it has heretofore been too expensive to manufacture such 45° inside corner pieces matched to the standard curved and stepped shape of the front wall of roof gutters currently used and have not gained widespread commercial acceptance.
It is an object of the present invention to provide such an increased capacity corner piece and method of manufacture which can be made at a low enough cost to be commercially viable.